


Life's Distraction

by prin_zyth



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, I'm lazy leave me alone, Idiots in Love, One-Shot, The Artifact, barely edited, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22551535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prin_zyth/pseuds/prin_zyth
Summary: Naáshala Kunamadéstifee falls for Dr. Soji Asha almost instantly after arriving on the Artifact.
Relationships: Soji Asha/Naáshala Kunamadéstifee
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	Life's Distraction

Naáshala supposed she couldn't really blame the Romulan Free State. After what had happened to the Romulan people, it wasn't surprising that their government was so disorganized. Mix-ups were bound to happen. Still, it didn't stop her from spending her trip to the Artifact worrying about all the reasons they might have had for revoking her residency, and speculating about all the horrible and awkward situations that might arise if the same thing happened again. What if she got a message just now, telling her to turn back? What if her performance there as a physician was less than some sort of minimum and they rejected her, leaving a permanent mark on her record? What if she made a life there, found a community, and was somehow, miraculously, assigned to stay there longer than she'd expected, only to have an arbitrary decision by a distant, inscrutable government body tear it away?

She was being absurd and paranoid; she knew this. She'd always been like this. Growing up, her mother had had to remind her, "Nasha, don't worry about it if you can't do anything about it." She'd even had to see a therapist as a teenager, but her father had stopped her from continuing with him as soon as any talk of a mental diagnosis came up. Trills had limited systems in place for dealing with mental health; they were far behind the rest of the Federation in that respect. And even beyond that, social taboos prevented them from having discussions about it outside of seclusive and secretive settings. It was something Naáshala had hoped to escape by leaving Trill, although she realized now that the Romulan Free State probably wasn't the best place for that. And the Artifact, especially, had too many other problems to be able to deal with comparably small issues like mental health.

Of course, she had other reasons for going, too, chiefly her excitement at the idea of being able to help the less fortunate—in this case, Borg and Romulans. In fact, by the time she reached the Artifact, finally reassured that it was too late for the Romulan Free State to cancel her residency yet again, she was quite excited.

Excited, and nervous. Maybe more the latter. It was hard to say. They were very similar emotions, she had found.

She didn't know what, exactly, she had been expecting, but she was still shocked and amazed by everything about the Artifact. Her gut reaction upon seeing it—a symbol of something that she had come to fear so intensely—was the strangest combination of terror and awe at its beauty, which continued, too, as she entered and saw the incredible transformation that was taking place in the interior of the former Borg cube.

She wasn't expected to work the first day, simply shown to her room to drop off her things and get some sleep. But she had spent hours and hours just sitting on a transport; she wasn't eager to rest. Instead, she began strolling through the corridors, observing the people passing, speaking in a messy conglomeration of Romulan and various other languages. (Should she have learned Romulan before coming here? Of course she should have. She didn't want to have to use her UT the whole time; it was alienating enough to be, well, an alien.) She pressed herself against walls as (former) Borg went by.

After seeing as much of the Artifact as she felt she could without losing track of how to get home, she started to turn back. But just then, someone caught her eye: a human woman with dark hair and a standard gray uniform, a few years younger than Naáshala, by the looks of her. She was startlingly beautiful, and Naáshala's heart twinged as she saw her apparent tenderness in her interactions with her conversation partner, a young Romulan man with shaggy hair. She thought about approaching her to say hello. It certainly couldn't hurt to make friends here, she thought, although she knew that wouldn't be her true motive in talking to this mystery woman.

But just as the conversation looked about to end, and as Naáshala finally built up the courage to go introduce herself, the pair walked off to parts unknown.

Disappointed, and somewhat relieved—contradictory emotions were apparently her thing today—she returned to her room to get some sleep, this time for real.

-

"These outfits should be illegal," Naáshala hissed under her breath as she struggled to zip up the red suit she'd been assigned for entering Grey Zone. Whoever had designed them clearly had cared more for safety than aesthetic, or ease. Sure, her hands were shaking (typical first-day anxiety), but still, it was a pain in the neck trying to get this on. Objectively.

She heard a laugh and looked up; someone was walking toward her. It was the woman she'd seen yesterday, the human. Startled, and afraid that she was about to turn as bright red as her suit, Naáshala looked down, then back up when she heard the woman speak to her:

"Here, let me help you with that."

And then the next thing she knew, the girl's hands were on her chest (only to button up her suit, but still). "So embarrassing," Naáshala stammered, half about her inability to do up her suit, and half about the other situation in which she had just found herself firmly ensconced.

The woman smiled and shook her head, but didn't respond. Did that mean she agreed? Was she embarrassed for Naáshala? Was she judging her?

She did her best to calm her racing, anxious mind. She didn’t have the energy to deal with those kinds of thoughts right now. "Thank you," she added.

"You new here? I haven't seen you around," the woman asked. Naáshala swore she could feel a smile through her words. She was even more charming up close.

Distracted by that and the girl's hands now on her waist, tying her belt, Naáshala almost forgot to respond. "Yesterday," she said at last, hoping the other woman hadn't noticed her uncomfortably long pause. She continued, "My residency was supposed to start six months ago, but the Romulan Free State revoked it when I was halfway here. I have no idea why, or why they finally reinstated it."

"Well, that sounds about right," the girl responded, her fingers brushing Naáshala's neck lightly as she fixed her collar.

Great. So she was beautiful and funny. And smart, presumably, if she was working here. This was not boding well for Naáshala's heart, which was pounding so loudly that she was certain the woman must have heard it.

She was talking again—explaining something, apparently. "They still don't have a clear idea of how much damage this cube sustained," she was saying. "Or maybe they do, and they just aren't telling. But, anyway, you don't want to cross into the Grey Zone without this turned on," she finished, tapping on a hexagonal badge on Naáshala's chest. She told herself that, logically, there was no way the woman would have felt her pulse through a quick touch to her chest. And besides, she might not even know what a normal Trill heart rate was. (Although she might, given that she was a doctor, after all.)

But what was this badge for? Naáshala suddenly found herself thinking again of her fear of the Borg, of the ways in which the Artifact's majesty was matched only by the horror of its history—and of its present.

As if reading her mind, the woman said, "Don't worry, you're gonna be fine," and walked out toward Grey Sector, an implicit invitation to join her present in her body language and smile.

Naáshala winced; this seemed like a bad idea.

She followed anyway.

-

She would learn that the woman's name was Soji Asha, that she was a doctor on the Artifact, sent there to help reclaim former members of the Borg Collective. She would learn most of this from a conversation just a few minutes later with Soji herself and someone else: the Romulan man with whom Naáshala had seen her speaking the day before. And she would learn the rest from her developing friendship with Soji over the next few weeks.

She was pretty sure that Soji and Narek were sleeping together. She'd suspected it from their first encounter, although fish as she might, she couldn't get Soji to confirm her theory for certain. The first time she'd seen Narek—well, the second time, counting the day she spotted him and Soji from afar—she asked her companion who he was. She'd smiled.

"That's Narek. He's new here, too."

Something about her voice had tipped Naáshala off to…well, she didn't quite know what. "I didn't know Romulans could be so hot," she said, because Soji clearly thought so.

Soji smiled. "Me neither."

This is absurd, she thought to herself, still smiling, as Narek was not only a man, but also an extremely mediocre man. She couldn't see why Soji found him attractive and not her. Straight people, she groaned internally. Why couldn't Soji just be a lesbian? Naáshala was clearly much more good-looking than this guy.

Of course, it could have been worse. They were still friends, which Naáshala figured was probably better than not having a relationship at all. Definitely better. Much better.

They usually got together for meals in the public cafeteria on the Artifact, where Soji talked and laughed about her work and tried, mostly successfully, to get Naáshala to discuss herself and her upbringing and her dreams and anything else that caught Soji's fancy that day.

And it was…fun. It was fun.

And then, one day, Soji invited Naáshala to have dinner, just the two of them, in Soji's quarters.

This was uncommon aboard the Artifact, though not unheard of. As Federation citizens, most people assumed they didn't have money, but this wasn't even remotely true. Everyone aboard the Artifact had money; it was simply expected. But the only restaurant onboard, burdened by obscene operating costs as a result of its inconvenient location, charged absurd rates for even the smallest food items, so only a few people ate their regularly, or at all. Naáshala, as of yet, had not, but she knew that they did deliver right to rooms, and, balancing her anxiety around Soji with her desire to eat something other than replicated Romulan food, decided to take her friend up on her offer.

She got there a few minutes after she'd been planning to; she'd accidentally gotten hung up trying to choose an outfit that looked good, but like she had platonic intentions toward Soji.

Which was true. Definitely true.

By the time she arrived, the food had already gotten there; she had been expecting Soji to order just human food, but she was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a wide array of Trill options there as well. In fact, there was just a wide array of food in general; Soji had clearly gone all out. It must have cost a fortune, Naáshala realized somewhat guiltily.

"This looks amazing!"

Soji grinned. "Well, so do you," she replied, gesturing toward the outfit Naáshala had eventually decided on: casual pants with a plain t-shirt and a sharp blue blazer.

She could feel her cheeks go red. "Um, thank you," she said, then continued to stand there awkwardly, waiting for some cue as to what to do.

Finally, Soji spared her and said, "So, do you wanna eat? Or we could just continue to admire the food, if you're not hungry after all."

Naáshala smiled. "Let's eat."

The dinner was disappointing, as if the chef had only ever read about the foods they'd been trying to make and had never actually eaten them themself. Still, it was a nice change from the diet Naáshala had had for the last few weeks, and she was relieved to have something that tasted—with some optimism and imagination—a bit like home. She found herself strangely nostalgic for her family and her old hometown, and her mind drifted away from the conversation that she was absently keeping up with Soji.

She must have been doing what she always did—passively filling in what she thought the other person wanted her to ask about—because Soji finally said, "Why do you keep asking about him?"

"Huh?" If she was telling the truth, Naáshala wasn't sure what, exactly, she had just asked. She thought about it and decided that it was something along the lines of "Have you figured out what Narek does here yet?"

"Narek. You keep asking about him. Why?"

"I… I didn't realize I was doing it," Naáshala stammered. "Sorry."

Soji laughed. "Do you have a crush on him or something?"

Naáshala had been taking a sip of water; she very nearly spat it out. When she at last swallowed it, semi-successfully, she said, "Um, no, I'm actually super gay." Not the way she planning on having that conversation, but there it was. She cringed at her own distracted forwardness.

Soji rolled her eyes, teasingly. "Well, I know that, silly. I was just kidding."

How on Trill could she possibly know that?

"But seriously, though, that's like the third time you've asked me about Narek. What's going on?"

Since she was apparently on a forwardness streak, why not? "I mean, aren't you sleeping together?"

"We have once or twice, yeah. Why?"

She'd been expecting obfuscation of some kind, followed perhaps by some sheepish confession. Not this. "Well, I—"

"It's not like he's the one I'm on a date with."

"A… a what?" What was going on right now? Had this been a date all along?

Soji looked suddenly panicked, her calm, joking demeanor completely gone. "I… I'm sorry, I thought you knew that… Is that okay? I'm sorry, I should have made it more clear when I asked you—"

"It's fine!" Naáshala quickly interjected. "I… I'm actually really happy it's a date. As I put it so eloquently earlier, I'm super gay. For you. So…"

Soji's grin returned. "Right back at you, Nasha."

Naáshala was smiling now, too. "We should do this again sometime."

"Tomorrow?"

"Totally."


End file.
